


Silver Lining

by lunarblazes



Category: Game Grumps, Starbomb (Band), TWRP | Tupper Ware Remix Party (Band), Xenoblade Chronicles
Genre: I don’t know how well this reads out of context, Meouch is sharla, Sung is shulk, TWRP is here sometimes but I really just wanted to write Danny and ego cos I thought it’d be fun, XENOBLADE CHRONICLES SPOILERS!, brian is dunban, danny is fiora, ego (Arin) is reyn, god these tags are so long, havve is just. Made up here dude he doesn’t align with any character in particular, i didn’t stick to the canon super heavily but I still think it’s important to mention, i shall provide to the best of my ability, im like that, im not in the xenoblade fandom but my friend is and we talked about it so much that I just made this, phobos is melia, so if u need clarification comment it, this fic is ego-centric (hehehehehe get it), this is a Xenoblade AU fic, this is gonna be some p angsts stuff bc you know me, this is the AU’s version of the shit that happened in galahad fortress, whoops, why isn’t there a starbomb fandom tag I stg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24989464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarblazes/pseuds/lunarblazes
Summary: After a fight with the world’s douchiest machine man, Ego finds himself stranded, cut off from his group, with an old friend who doesn’t know what’s going on.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Silver Lining

**Author's Note:**

  * For [demizorua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/demizorua/gifts).



> GOD this is so LONG. None of this fic would be possible without the lovely, wonderful, exquisite guidance of demizorua! Without them I would have literally no idea what Xenoblade was, much less be able to write a 9 thousand word fic on the topic. Go show them all your love!!

Shit. Shit shit shit shit  _ shit.  _

Ego was currently standing on a crumbling fortress hundreds of meters above ground, being attacked by his former best friend and a really evil robot guy while their only weapon against said robot guy had been rendered useless. 

This was not ideal.

A rumbling began as Ego felt a hot presence above his head, ducking just in time to avoid Egil’s blast. The mech was flying, aided by his second in command, Danny. Or, as Egil called him, Silver Face. Ego wondered if Egil knew what Danny was to them. If he’d pegged Egil right, he probably did. He wasn’t the type to miss details. Whatever he’d done to turn Danny from their friend who got sad if someone killed a fly into a ruthless, emotionless, murderous robot, it seemed to be working, much to their group’s dismay. Silver Face was following Egil into battle without any visible hesitation, though… it did seem as though the robot was tiring itself out, or something of the sort. Its blade was missing more often, using less and less force as time went on. 

The ground shook again, and Ego jumped to the side to avoid Egil’s attack. The Machina snarled and raised his arm again, ready to strike them down. Ego braced himself to catch the hit— at least that would stop him from hurting the others— but the hit never came. Instead, a piercing metal shriek cut through the air, making Ego wince. He stood, confused. 

“Woah,” Sung breathed from behind him. 

Silver Face (or…Danny?) had somehow driven its body into Egil’s mechanical form. Egil threw it off and onto the fort’s floors again. It tried to struggle back up, but to no avail. A quiet voice emerged from the innards of the face, something that wasn’t quite familiar but wasn’t entirely new. “Egil… I won’t let you hurt them…”

Egil almost radiated confusion, and despite the gravity of the situation, Ego took some satisfaction in knowing that he didn’t get to be perfect. “You— how dare you?” The smug look was back on his face in an instant, and Ego’s satisfaction evaporated as Egil’s hand wrapped around his body. Sung yelled and ran to try and get him out, but he was already clenched in the hand of a titan.

“...This one?” He laughed, mirthless and grating. “Really? You would give up your power, your place at my side for this pathetic Homs?” Ego squirmed in the death grip of the mech, trying to get his arms free.

“I bet the face would abandon me, too, if I had a mug as ugly as yours,” Ego spat. “Back off, shitstain.”

“Aw, you’re quite the rude one, aren’t you? Charming.” 

Meouch was yelling something to Phobos, Brian, and Sung. They were making a plan, that was good. Ego couldn’t help but feel frustrated that he was trapped here, probably about fifty meters off the ground, useless to his friends. Maybe if he kept Egil talking, they’d get an idea on how to fix the Monado…

He opened his mouth to respond to Egil’s comment. “I—“

A loud screech cut him off. He was really getting tired of the noises. Egil turned his attention back to the face and his friends, growling. “I grow tired of this disobedience, face. Stay down or die like a Homs.”

He let go of Ego, who went weightless. 

_ Well, I’m going to fucking die. _

_ Wait, I know how to absorb impact, Brian said so... _

_ Tuck, roll, don’t land on a leg… _

He hit the ground and rolled. Surprisingly, nothing was hurt. Meouch ran up to him, gun at the ready to heal if he needed, but Ego waved him off. He was more interested in what Egil had seen.

Silver Face was standing once more, scratched and battered. It deployed a blade in a flourish of its arm.

“I… I can’t let you hurt them.” Silver Face assumed an offensive stance. A blast of neon light exploded through the air, almost knocking over Ego, but when it was through, the sword in Sung’s hand was flaring blue once more. 

Egil’s face melted into an expression of shock. “How are you…?” Quickly, he shifted back to anger. “It does not matter. You have chosen death.”

Meouch’s eyebrows were knitting together. “I dunno what this crazy robot is doing, but it’s helping, isn't it?”

Phobos nodded hesitantly, and Ego started to grin. “We can take Egil down with his help and with the Monado!”

They charged forward, but Ego quickly noticed Sung wasn’t with them. He turned just as Sung screamed, “DANNY!”

His blood ran cold. There was only one thing that would cause him to be that terrified. “MEOUCH, PHOBOS— STOP! THE FACE—“

Brian had already pieced together what was happening, and as the two raced to stop Sung’s vision, Silver Face charged. Egil met it with a steady and strong hand, but the face managed to push him back. It was all for naught, however, as Egil grabbed the face by its neck. A sickening crunch of metal followed.

“PUT HIM DOWN, EGIL!” Ego roared. He started to move towards the silver man, but stopped as Brian gave him a warning look. Ego didn’t particularly care what Brian thought at this moment, so after a few beats, he kept going. The only thing he cared about was making sure this wasn’t a repeat of the last time he’d seen Dan, and from what was unfolding it seemed likely to head there again if he didn’t do something.

“Fine. Goodbye, worthless machine.” He let go of the limp figure and sent it plummeting towards the ground.

_ Not again.  _ Never  _ again. _

“NO!!” Ego screamed. 

Ego didn’t think about it, which was turning out to be one of his strong suits. He simply sprinted towards the ruined body of his best friend. Which was currently hurtling towards the water at a breakneck speed. That reality only hit him when his feet had left the edge of the fortress’ ground.

Now  _ he  _ was hurtling towards the water at breakneck speed.

He was surprisingly okay with this. Maybe he’d see Danny after it was all over. He hoped so. Anything was better than seeing your closest friend almost killed, brainwashed, and then used as a weapon against you. However, Ego also really wanted Sung to see that Danny had survived. He was resilient, clearly, and Ego had a hunch he would. 

Maybe they’d see each other again later, then.

That was his last thought before his leg hit the water and bubbles filled his vision into nothing. The world went blank except for the sound of underwater static and the tingling working its way up his leg.

And… sand?

Yeah, that was sand. 

He coughed. His face was covered in sand. Something else was wrong, though…

Oh, right. The seawater that had collected in his lungs. That was probably important. He coughed again, choking on water that made its way up, curling his fists in the sand as he tried to get it out. 

Eventually the water was banished, and he gasped his first breath of pure air in a while. Ego looked up, flopping over on his back and sighing. “Well. That was an adventure.”

“Wh… who… what…”

Ego’s eyes snapped open. He sat up, twisting in the sand. A searing pain in his leg told him to stop, but he ignored it and stood up. 

Standing in the sand, a few meters away and hugging his torso like he was cold, was Danny. He was definitely different, seemingly made of a lot more metal and with shorter hair, but alive. He was alive. 

_ Dan was alive. _

Ego whooped loudly, excitedly hobbling towards his friend. “DANNY! Oh my god, wait until we can get you to Brian, he’ll flip his shit! Sung will be so happy to— ow, fuck— see you too, and Meouch and Phobos will finally get to meet you—“

He stopped. Danny was shrinking back, stepping away from him. “Dan? Are… you okay?”

“Who… who are you?” Dan rasped out. He seemed like he was about to faint, swaying on his feet. Ego dove forward to catch him. 

“Woah, woah, woah, buddy— it’s me. Ego. You know me!” The other man’s expression didn’t change from terror and confusion. “...you know me, right?”

Danny looked like he was about to answer, but he went limp before he could. He was out cold before Ego could even react. Ego gently placed him back on the sand. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck— how do I wake him up?!” 

He scanned his surroundings. Red patches led over to a crushed metal skeleton. Ego followed them, curious.

He quickly realized that the wreckage was Silver Face’s decrepit form, twisted and broken against the beach. The red spots were… blood. A lot of it was pooling around the mech, like the world’s worst scenic lake, and Ego came to the conclusion that the blood was Danny’s and this was probably why he’d passed out so quickly.

Shit. He needed to get Danny more fluids. Luckily, he was carrying a flask containing a good portion of water. It wouldn’t serve as a proper blood transfusion, but it might keep him up and alive until they could find one of those.

He limped back to Danny’s body and unclipped the flask from his belt, lifting the other man’s head so the water could make its way in. After Ego had given him about half the flask’s contents, he closed up the top and shoved it back on his belt, praying to whatever gods existed for his friend to wake up.

Was he still breathing? Did he even need to breathe with this new body? It seemed as though Egil hadn’t been lying about making Dan into a Machina— his limbs and fingers and parts of his chest appeared to be fully metal, including a bright red core attached to his chest. Ego ran a hand along the edge of the core, tracing it like a star. This seemed to be what had emitted the blue light to fix the Monado back in the fortress, he realized. As the thought crossed his mind, the core heated up under his touch, and he jerked his fingers away, stumbling back. It began to glow red, almost steaming in Danny’s chest. 

“Danny? What the shit?” Ego scooted back towards the surf, cautious to this new possible threat. “Are you okay?”

A weak wave of red light streaked through the air in a circle, blasting Ego’s face like a warm vent of steam before dissipating into the surrounding sky. Danny’s body shot upwards, panting heavily.

“OH! Holy fuck, okay, hi! You’re alive,” Ego said, carefully making his way over to his friend. “That’s good news.”

To his disappointment, Danny looked at him with the same terror in his eyes as he’d had before. His hand was resting on the core in his chest. He didn’t seem bothered by the heat it was emitting. “Wh— h— I— who are you? Where are we?” He paused, struggling with something. “W— who am  _ I? _ ”

Ego knelt, drawing a sharp inhale as he leaned on his leg, which was probably broken. “Okay, well, I can answer those. It’s up to you if you believe me, but I’m telling you the truth, I swear on my honor.”

He waited for Danny to reply with a shaky nod. “Cool. Who am I— I’m Ego. I’m from Colony 9 on the Bionis. I punch things really hard and hope they die. Where are we— we just fell about three hundred meters from a fortress while battling a really douchey mechanical man onto this random beach. I have no idea where our… well, I guess,  _ my  _ friends are, if they even made it out of that in one piece.” He sighed and began to draw little figures in the sand. “And as for who you are… I’m not sure who you are now, but I can answer for the one I used to know. Your name is Danny. You liked horses and always insisted that unicorns were just in hiding. You liked to sing and you were really good at it. You liked sword fighting but you hated hand to hand combat because I always kicked your ass at it. You lived with Brian and you were the only one who knew what he meant all the time. Nobody ever knew how you could do it. But then you died, or at least we thought you did, and became a robot, and tried to kill us all a few times, and now you’re here and you don’t… remember anything. At least not like you should…”

Danny was standing up now, hand still nervously tracing around the star in his chest. The metal was making a small grating noise as the parts dragged against each other. “I… Lord Egil. I betrayed him… why? He— he needs me, I— I was supposed to obey him, I— I failed him, I need to go back—“

Ego pulled himself up swiftly, his leg and ankle screaming in protest at the motion. He grabbed Dan’s shoulders tightly. “No,” he said firmly. “I am making sure you never go back to that scumbag if it’s the last thing I do.”

Danny’s expression tightened as if struggling against itself before softening into mild confusion. He stared at Ego’s face, seemingly studying it. “You… you’re why I betrayed him.”

“Huh?” Ego blinked. He was what now? His grip on Dan’s shoulders loosened. 

“Yeah, Havve… Havve wanted to kill you. And that one with the sword, the glowing one. Havve said you had to die. But I… I didn’t want you to.” Danny’s head tilted. He didn’t break eye contact when doing so. Ego got the feeling he was being assessed for something, some quality that he couldn’t define. It felt like a wolf who had just eaten a meal eyeing a rabbit, wondering if he should strike or leave with his prize. Danny had never looked at him like that, and Ego had a thought that maybe someone else had influenced this behavior. 

Before he could speak again, Dan’s eyes widened. “ _ Havve.” _ He whispered urgently.

“Uh… who…?”

He wrenched free of Ego’s grip on his shoulder and ran to the wreckage of Silver Face. Ego swore under his breath and followed as fast as he could with a broken leg and a suspected sprained ankle. “Dan, what are you—?”

Dan grabbed the faceplate of the dilapidated mech and yanked it. It didn’t come off the first time, so he continued applying more and more force until the plate snapped off with a loud crunch. Ego winced at the noise, but Danny just kept digging through the innards of the mech’s face, looking for something before yanking out a small piece of metal and stepping away. “There. That’s him.”

“That’s— that’s who? Didn’t you say that this Havve wanted to kill me?”

“I think so. But he didn’t. He didn’t kill you. He stopped, whether that was the right choice or not. He deserves a chance to come with me to… wherever we’re going.”

“You’re coming with me?”

“I’m not sure I have a choice. I still don’t know who I am or if I can trust you at all, but…” He ran his fingers over his chest once more, pensive, the parts he’d taken from the wreckage clutched tightly in his fist. “It’s my only option.”

Ego had to admit that stung. His best friend had just outright said that he was only sticking with him because it was his only option, not because they were friends or because he wanted to or because of  _ anything _ . Just out of necessity. “Do you really not remember anything…?” Ego asked in a small voice. He wasn’t sure if he even wanted an answer. 

“No.” It came nonetheless. “Nothing except Egil’s lab.”

“His lab?”

“You said that I died. Is that why I was there? He was fixing me?”

“Yeah, probably. He needed you to pilot the face, I think.”

Danny laughed. It was achingly familiar, but no happiness was behind it. Only bitter sarcasm lay behind the sound, a sad note laying in the wind. “I wasn’t a pilot. I wasn’t in control. Havve was the one calling the shots.”

“Why were you there then?”

“I was fuel.”

Ego’s body stiffened at that. “I— I— What?”

Danny frowned, his eyebrows tilting down. “I— how did I…? What was that…?”

He suddenly looked unsteady again, his body beginning to shake. Ego saw the warning signs and bridged the gap between them to catch him before he had a chance to crumple onto the sand. When he looked at Danny’s face again, he was out cold once more. 

“Shit, shit, shit… not again!” He fumbled with the flask on his belt, trying to open the cap without spilling any. Ego carefully tilted the liquid to his companion’s lips. It was clear that the water couldn’t sustain him forever— they needed blood, and fast. A glance up at the sky said that it was almost sunset. He must have been out for several hours after they fell. Finding the rest of their crew should be his top priority right now. Meouch could at least keep Danny alive until they could fix him. Did he even use the same kind of blood anymore?

This time, his eyelids stayed shut. Ego felt a knot of sadness, terror, maybe some anger thrown in for flavor settle into his gut. It laid there, content to make Ego feel like absolute emotional garbage for the moment. Danny seemed to still be breathing, which was good, but no other signs of life emerged as the sun dipped below the horizon. 

He sighed and stood up, trying to shift his weight away from his injured leg. He’d been trying to ignore the pain because it sort of seemed like trying to keep his friend from bleeding out was more important than his leg injury, but now that it seemed like there wasn’t anything else he could do, his attention was finally focused on the pain. He took deep breaths, trying to dispel the throbbing waves of nausea and the sobs rising in his chest.

Needless to say, it fucking hurt. The leg didn’t seem super outwardly messed up, which was good, but he’d still need to support it with a brace or a splint. He stood very carefully, looking for a straight branch of sorts to tie to the spot. Soon, he’d located and tied the branch onto his leg, tightly enough that he gasped from the pain, spots dancing in his eyes. After doing a quick scan of the beach, he determined that they weren’t in immediate danger and went to check on Dan, limping over the best he could.

He still wasn’t awake, which was definitely worrying. The strange core in his chest stayed normal and silent this time, unfortunately. Ego frowned.

“Ugh,” he mumbled, flicking the core with his index finger. “Can’t you help him?”

The core, shockingly, didn’t respond. He sighed and lay back onto the sand. The sun had pretty much disappeared into the horizon, giving way to millions and millions and millions of stars in the sky. Ego looked at them all, wondering which ones were there as a guide. The stars always reminded him of Sung, and he’d never known why. Something about them just… fit him. It didn’t help that his background was all mysterious and strange, that he couldn’t remember anything before he’d been found in the wrecked village, that he alone could wield the Monado without disastrous consequences. They’d always loved thinking and theorizing about where Sung had been before he’d arrived in Colony 9, and it had been Danny who suggested the theory that the stars had sent him down. The idea of it made everyone feel a bit strange, and a quiet had fallen over them, before Brian had appeared for sword practice. Ever since this whole thing had begun and he’d set off with Sung on this quest, he’d been remembering that story more and more. He didn’t know what it was lately, with these memories and nuances and dream states and mechs, but Sung had really assumed the part of a leader in all this, and Ego couldn’t be prouder. 

_ It suits him,  _ he thought to the stars.

The crashing waves drowned out any response he might have heard and softly pulled him to sleep in the soft sands of the beach.




Ego awoke to nothing in particular the next morning, just the quiet movement of the waves once more. He sat up, stretching until he remembered that his leg was broken. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Forgot about that.”

His gaze quickly wandered to Danny once more. He was still out cold, but Ego could see the rise and fall of his chest. He counted this as a blessing and made his way over to his friend to check for a pulse.

As he laid his hand onto Danny’s neck, he immediately noticed the shaking. Danny was shivering almost violently, and his skin was damp and hot. He’d appeared to have developed a fever over the course of the night, which… admittedly wasn’t as good of a blessing as the breathing part. Ego swore again. Today he’d have to try and figure out how to find the others, if they were even on the beach. Of course  _ he  _ was the one stuck with the horribly injured man, the only one who couldn’t heal at all. He kicked the sand with his good leg.  _ Useless asshole. Can’t even heal a friend. _

He dug through his supply belt, trying to see if there was anything to start a signal fire with. Some flint, a lighter, anything? 

Nope. Apparently luck was not on his side tonight, which he probably should have guessed. He sighed again and began to comb the beach for any flint or hard rocks he could use to light a spark. 

After about an hour of searching the barren beach, he’d managed to find a good, sturdy piece of granite, a flint, a bit of flammable driftwood, and some dried out seaweed. That should be enough to start a fire, which he thanked the gods for. He laid all the items down, wood first, then seaweed, and began trying for a big enough spark to set the fire. He quickly got lost in the task, just scraping the flint against the granite, back and strike and back and strike and back… 

This cycle was snapped out of its repetition by… something. Ego hadn’t been paying attention closely, he didn’t know what had alerted him to stop the fire, but it had done  _ something _ . He stood, wincing as he tried to stand with his ruined leg. After a quick scan of the beach, nothing was outwardly wrong. No wild animals, no people, no robots… well, other than Danny, he supposed, but—

_ Danny. _

Ego squinted. He wanted to move as little as possible since he wasn’t really in the right state to do such a thing, so looking was his best option right now. Even as he looked there was  _ definitely  _ something strange happening to his friend. His eyes remained closed, his breaths shallow, but the shaking had increased to a crescendo it seemed. Ego made his way over, painfully slow in his steps.

Danny’s whole body was shivering. Ego didn’t need to touch him this time to see it; it was almost as if he were having a bad dream, a nightmare, of which Ego would probably know nothing about. Ego leaned down to check his temperature again and found that the heat was gone from his skin, but as he praised this he realized that almost  _ all  _ the heat was gone. His body was growing colder and colder.

Ego could feel his heart pounding in his ears.  _ Is he going… to die like this? _

The answer came fast and clear like starlight through the cloudy night sky.  _ Not if I can help it. _

Ego grabbed the shoulders of his friend’s body, desperately trying to wake him. “C’mon, c’mon man! Danny! Danny, you have to get up! Please, I can’t let you die again!!”

In an act of panic, a last ditch effort to help as Danny’s body went still in his arms, he wrapped his hands around the mysterious core in Danny’s chest. The thing almost immediately began reacting to his touch, lighting up to an almost scorching heat. Ego tried to tear his hands away only to find they were stuck fast to the spot. He watched as red light crept into Danny’s body, dancing in his veins and burning through his heart. 

Tears filled Ego’s eyes. The core was only getting hotter and hotter and he still couldn’t let go. He was biting back screams, swallowing them before they had the chance to surface. 

It was almost as if time had slowed or stopped. Nothing and nobody moved except the pounding red light emanating from the core. Ego didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t move as the light circulated up up up, into his arms, into his chest, through his heart. It was warm and blurry and full of life life life, he could feel its life in him and it was  _ scary _ . A voice accompanied it in his mind, a soft and smooth whisper inviting him to hold on, to stay, to accept the light. Something about this voice was calming him, a sedative drug against the pain. It sounded like a friend, but he couldn’t ignore the real friend, pressed to his palms, his life flickering like a candle in the wind. He didn’t answer the voice, somehow fighting off the urge to give in. He didn’t want any of this magic, this light and shadow and power. He just wanted his best friend back.

All at once, seemingly at the command of that thought, the light vanished. The pain vanished, time stopped feeling like he was moving through putty, and he could move again. Ego tumbled back, letting out a ragged gasp. “Oh my gods, oh my gods, oh  _ Bionis _ ,” he panted. “What the  _ fuck  _ was that?!”

His gaze shot down to his hands, wholly expecting them to be scarred, at least bleeding from the burns that had just occurred, but to his immense surprise all that greeted him was normal skin. Normal. Not burned, not scratched in the slightest. “What the  _ fuck _ just happened…?” He whispered to himself. He couldn’t feel the light anymore, but he honestly had no idea if that meant it wasn’t there or if it was just hiding somewhere. 

Before he really had time to absolutely, decidedly, and wholly freak out about the insane things that had just happened, another thing happened abruptly. Danny sat up, panting and coughing and shaking, holding his chest tightly. Like the first time he’d woken up, but different, somehow. Ego didn’t move to him this time, simply watching from where he sat in the sand, wary of any strange happenings in the works. 

“I— I got stabbed, I did— I did, I got stabbed,” Dan started to ramble almost as soon as he could breathe again. “I di— I died, I died, and then he took me away and I— I— got this put in me and these and I  _ hurt  _ you and I  _ hurt  _ Sung and I  _ hurt  _ Brian and I— I died trying to protect you and he— he made me  _ hurt  _ you!”

Danny was speaking the way someone would speak when sobbing uncontrollably, though no tears were falling. Ego supposed it was out of sheer panic that he was having trouble breathing and speaking, and he tried to get over his weird fear of what had just happened to comfort his friend but the feeling of burning skin and light was enough repellent to keep him frozen, useless to help. “Uh… what… what do you remember, then?”

“I— I remembered getting stabbed by the face, and seeing you— you stuck on the ground, and knowing I had to help, and Sung screaming, and then it all went fuzzy and there was a woman and this intense light and— and a  _ thing  _ in my chest, some kind of weird thing and it made me alive again, and then— th— then he came and he— h— he did something to my body and I— I lost control and, and and and  _ and I tried to kill you,”  _ Danny forced out the words as if he were afraid he’d lose them to some void, something unknown and hungry opening inside himself. He put his hands over his mouth, looking desperately afraid, straight at Ego. This time Ego got the feeling that he wasn’t scared of him, of seeing his face. “I— I could have  _ killed _ you.”

“I— you could have, yeah, but, um, you didn’t,” Ego tried. He winced at the sound of his own words, shaky and weak. He shouldn’t be scared of his friend, not when Danny needed help. “You’re okay now, and you remember— I mean, I guess you do, and it’s fine. We’ll be fine.”

“Did— did I hurt you at all?” He stood with some effort, wobbling like a newborn deer on his robotic legs. “Fuck, these legs are so  _ weird… _ how did I ever walk in them?”

“No, it’s okay, you didn’t hurt me, Danny,” Ego said, trying to avoid contact with the other man. Please, anything for him not to come over and try to touch him and for that horrible core and the soothing sugar and honey of a voice to come back and sear everything, sear his hands and his thoughts and his veins once more. “I’m— I am fine.”

Danny held out a hand to help him up and Ego couldn’t bring himself to take it. Danny’s face fell. “I did something to you, didn’t I?”

“No.” He swore internally. “I’m fine.” Ego had never been a good liar.

“Yeah. I… I did.” Dan’s hand dropped to his side. “That’s only fair, I suppose. Once we find the group, you guys can do with me as you please.”

“Stop talking like that. Nobody is going to want to get rid of you, trust me,” Ego said firmly, standing up on his own. He let out a small cry as his weight shifted to his broken leg, and Danny shot him a concerned look.

“First of all: I hurt you and I probably hurt a lot of them. Second of all: is your leg okay? Did I—“

“You didn’t. We fell from a fortress in the sky.”

“Why are you scared of me, then? What did I do?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Ego couldn’t help an involuntary glance at his palms before balling them back into fists at his side. He crossed his arms to hide the panicky shaking of his fingers. “Now, help me start a fire.”

Danny looked like he wanted to argue, but didn’t press further, sensing that Ego didn’t want to talk about it. They silently worked on starting the fire, and within a few minutes, it was roaring. 

“We’ll have to go get more fuel every once in a while,” Ego said, stepping away from the smoke. “They should see this, if they’re not dead by now…” His eyes met Danny’s. Despite his mild fear of the strange device stuck into his friend’s rib cage, Dan was still just that: his friend, and he wanted to know what had happened before the red light had come. He cleared his throat. “So, um… how did you figure out all that? The memories?”

Danny sat by the fire with his thighs pressed to his chest. Ego noticed that his natural stance was to protect his chest, where that blasted thing was. He didn’t even think Danny had noticed it yet. “I don’t remember what happened before it well, I just remember feeling really foggy and strange, like I was floating, or falling, and then there was this light—“ Ego winced at the mention of this, hoping that Danny wouldn’t see. His gaze appeared to be held by the fire’s dance, as if it was what was keeping him alive. “—in my mind, and a lady whispered to me. I didn’t understand what she was saying, but then I must have fallen asleep or something because the next thing I knew I was in a dream. Or, at least, I think it was a dream.” He worried his lip between his teeth, drawing his legs tighter around him. “That’s what it had to be, because I saw a mech, a big one, and the rest of you were on the ground, and you couldn’t move. I couldn’t move either, but then I saw someone who looked like me go and pilot an attack mech and…” He paused for a minute, and Ego waited patiently. When Danny didn’t continue his sentence, Ego supplied the thought gently.

“He chased it, gunned it, and he was stabbed, wasn’t he?”

Danny nodded quietly. “And the mech buried its claws into his stomach and all I could feel was… was death. It felt like I was in the suit. I thought I was going to die, right there. I think the man in the suit  _ did  _ die…”

Ego frowned and turned away, hoping to keep Danny from seeing his face. He made a motion to continue.

“I… think it felt like I was in the suit because I  _ was,  _ wasn’t I?” 

Ego nodded, and Danny sighed. “Yeah, that’s what I figured. It felt like it was mine, somehow. I’m going to save the second memory for last, because it’s kinda hard to explain in words. It was more like a series of images. The last dream was a fight, a battlefield. It almost looked like... a chess board?”

“Of course it did. It’s always chess with you.” Ego suppressed a grumble. Danny was stupidly good at chess, and he’d never lost a game to anyone on Colony 9. He insisted he was merely okay at the game, but Ego called bullshit on that. Ego turned so Danny could see his eye roll. “Even when you died, I’m sure you’d still kick my ass at it.”

“I…” Danny tilted his head, and Ego got a sinking feeling.

“You don’t know what that is, do you?”

“Not really, no. The words just kinda made sense for me to say, I’m sorry. I should know what they mean?” 

“Don’t worry about it too much. Just keep going.”

“Alright.” Danny frowned slightly. “It was just like the first dream in that I wasn’t directly involved. I couldn’t move, either. Mostly just an overhead view of things. But there was a robot, and you, and Sung, and Brian, and… I think two other people? I don’t know who they are, sorry.”

“Again, don’t worry about it. I’m assuming that’s Phobos and Meouch, you wouldn’t know them. They’ve never met you.”

“I watched as the big robot swung a sword at— at you, and everything almost slowed down as I tried to move to stop it, but I was still stuck. The blade stopped swinging, though, and you looked shocked, but then the robot had a big chest cavity that opened and you all froze and I had this weird feeling… Like… like I was trapped, in something, and I had to stay and fight. Like I had stopped the blade somehow, even though I hadn’t moved the whole time. The world around me dissolved into nothing, just an endless void of… darkness, and I felt someone watching me. My limbs started to hurt, aching more and more until I couldn’t… I couldn’t breathe, and someone was laughing. Then there was a big, spreading warmth in my chest and then I woke up, and I couldn’t breathe right.” Danny rested his chin on his knees, his hair flopping over his face. He blew it off his eyes and stared into the flames again. “And you know what happened from there.”

Ego was sure he’d gone pale. That must have been when he’d touched the red core, and the light had flared. Had he sent Danny into that panic…? “Y— yeah. Do you need a second before you go to the second memory?”

“If that’s okay, I could use a bit. Just so I can figure out how to say it,” Danny replied. “It’s… a lot.”

Ego nodded, and they sat for a while. Just sitting, listening to the fire crackle as the sun began to dip into the ocean once more. Ego’s stomach growled. He’d almost entirely forgotten he needed to eat or drink, with all the insane magical shit happening around him. Food could probably wait, but water was desperately needed. He took out his flask and took a swig of its contents, careful not to drink too much. They needed to make this last. Danny had already had water earlier when he’d used it to revive him, so Ego capped the bottle and put it away again.

A small sigh interrupted the dip in conversation as Danny stared intently into the fire. He had that same look on his face from earlier, the one of a hunter sizing up prey, even though he wasn’t looking at anyone in particular. Ego probably would have jumped out of his skin if that gaze was fixed on him, after what had happened with the core. The light of the fire made his eyes look almost pink, a red aura surrounding him. At least, Ego hoped it was the fire. He didn’t want to think about what else it could be.

Danny took a deep breath. “Okay. I… hm. This next part didn’t feel like a dream. I could move, though barely, and it was from my perspective. I felt groggy, I couldn’t really see anything for a while, but after a bit I realized I was in a big metallic room. There was a woman standing next to me, and I turned to ask her about what was happening, but I became aware I was strapped down.”

Ego grimaced. He was starting to get an idea about what this memory would contain. “A laboratory…”

“Y— yeah. How did you…?” Danny shot him a questioning look.

“You told me. Before you woke up.” Ego frowned, a little confused. “Do you not remember that?”

“I was awake before this?”

“Yeah. We talked. You didn’t know who I was.”

“Huh.”

“Anyway, keep going.”

“Alright. I was strapped down, and I really did try to pull away from the restraints, but there was this big pain in my chest and stomach. I… I have a feeling this happened after the mech— after the mech took me away from you. It felt like the same pain that caused, like a crushingly sharp, stabbing pain. This is where it gets a little fuzzy, more broken up. After that, I just remember the pain being there and my mouth trying to scream, and I think I must have passed out for a second because when I woke up, the lady by my prison was in front of me. She was holding some kind of red jewel, and I think she said something. She looked sad, but a little hopeful too; I remember that well. She did something with the jewel, and I heard a female voice in my head. It was probably hers, now that I think about it, but I was a little distracted by the sudden… hm…”

Ego waited patiently for Danny to find his words. It took a while for him to return to his story, enough time for Ego to get more wood and put it on the fire. He seemed lost in some kind of mental maze, not sure how to explain what had happened. “You okay over there, man?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m still a little new to this whole ‘talking to someone else’ thing.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Words are harder than just thinking about things.”

“Understandable. I still have a hard time talking about what happened with the spiders,” Ego responded, stretching his arms out before sitting back down. “I’m not sure Meouch, Brian, or Phobos will ever know about it fully.”

Danny looked like he wanted to ask something, but thought better of it. “Well, uh… she put the jewel near my chest and then everything got really… weird. I don’t know how else to explain it. It was like lightning, but it was everywhere, and it was inside of me. It was bizarre. I must have passed out again because when I looked around, the jewel was stuck to me, and a man was walking into the room. Everything was blurry and there was a weird ringing in my ears. I didn’t have the mental capacity to talk or ask questions or even try to break free— everything just hurt. It felt like I’d turned to putty.” Danny was staring at his metal hand, pensive. “The man smiled, laid his hand under my chin, and said something that I was too out of it to hear. Someone else wheeled a cart in, and the man laughed and walked away. Then the dream faded out, and I went to the battlefield. I woke up here with you.”

Ego was sure he looked stupid. His eyes were wide open and he was barely restraining the look of utter horror and sadness on his face as Danny finished. 

“Holy  _ shit.  _ Do… d’you think that’s how you ended up like that,” Ego said softly, gesturing to Danny’s arm.

“If I had to guess, yeah.” He blew out a huffy breath and leaned back, laying across the sand. His left arm flopped over his chest as he pointed the right one up to the sky. 

Still protecting the jewel, as he called it. Ego took a mental note of this and went to go feed more driftwood into the flames. Bionis, he hoped Sung would find them here. He didn’t know how much longer they even had on this borrowed time. They both should have died as soon as they hit the water, Danny should have died when he was stabbed, hell, Ego should have died when the spiders came for him…

He shuddered at the memory and brought back his armload of kindling to the flames. Danny was still laying in the same position, studying his mechanical hands with a critical eye.

“Hey,” he said, looking over at the other man, “do you think I can do anything cool with these? Like crush a rock or… I dunno, shoot fire?”

“I wouldn’t try it,” Ego responded. “When I found you in Silver Face, there was uh… a lot of blood. I don’t want you doing anything too extreme before we can get you to a healer.”

“Alright.” A comfortable silence fell as each man began thinking about his own train of thoughts. The silence continued for a while, Ego feeding wood and plants into the fire as needed, Danny looking up at the appearing stars and his limbs, occasionally prodding them to see how they reacted.

“Ego, can I ask you something?”

“You just did,” Ego quipped, not thinking about what he’d said.

And then Danny laughed, a real, full laugh. No bitterness, no sadness, no fear. If he closed his eyes, stood still, didn’t think about the pain in his leg or the strange lights, the insane shit his friend had just confided in him about, he could pretend this was normal. They were back on Colony 9, joking on the rooftops after Brian had tried to nag them to sleep and Sung had gone home to his father, most likely messing with some robotics project he’d show off to them tomorrow. The stars may belong to the mysterious leader, but the dusk was for jokes, for laughter, for fun.

There was quiet for a few more moments, until Danny spoke again. “No, but really.”

“Hit me, man.”

“What  _ did  _ I do to you? I know I did something, and I think that you’ll say it wasn’t my fault or anything, and that it doesn’t matter, but… I still want to know. If there’s anything I can do to make you feel better about anything, you can tell me.” When Ego didn’t respond, he kept going, his voice wavering slightly. “I want to earn your trust again. I don’t know how everyone will react to seeing me again, but something inside me tells me that I would do anything to protect you all, anything to keep you safe, and if that means that I need to be punished or that I need to change something, you need to tell me. Please.”

“ _ Stop _ talking like that.” Ego turned away from the fire and from his friend. “Nobody will hate you. We all still love and trust you, Danny. You’re our friend.”

“That doesn’t mean I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You  _ haven’t.” _

Danny sat up, leaning forward, towards Ego’s back. “Then why are you still afraid of me?”

“I’m not. What gave you that impression?”

Danny sat forward and grabbed Ego’s arm. Ego recoiled at the touch, jumping to his feet and scrambling back. His leg failed and he yelped in pain, falling back on the sand.

“Your reaction to  _ that _ .” Danny retracted his arm, leaning back again. “Please, just tell me what I did.”

There was silence for a long time. Ego laid back in the sand, pondering about why he was such an idiot. He  _ shouldn’t  _ be afraid of his  _ best friend.  _ It wasn’t like he would hurt him. 

But it  _ was  _ like that. Because he had, probably unintentionally, but that almost made it worse. Knowing that it could happen at any moment. Ego knew that Danny was watching him, waiting for a response, but he just couldn’t bring himself to spill what had happened. 

“I… I can’t.”

“Can’t why?”

“It wasn’t your fault, anyway.”

“I still need to  _ know  _ about it, mister meathead.” Danny was getting agitated now, Ego could hear it. He sat up, frowning.

“I don’t think it’s that important, man.”

“I don’t want my friends to be terrified of me!!” The outburst came from seemingly nowhere, making Ego jump. He glanced over at the other man, and panic spread across his body. The red jewel stuck in Danny’s chest was faintly glowing, crackling along with his anger. “I don’t want you all to be scared! I didn’t want to hurt you, ever, and I don’t want you to continue hurting because of something I can fix! I may not remember much but from what I can tell, you are the people I have chosen to fight for and I can’t continue to be okay around people who I care about and who I have  _ hurt  _ if I don’t know how I can  _ fix it _ .” He pressed his palms into his eyes, shaking slightly.

Ego took a quick breath, hesitating. He reached out an arm to Danny’s shoulder, gently making contact with him. To his immense relief, nothing weird happened. “I’m not hurt, Danny. You couldn’t do anything terrible to me, I promise. You’ve fixed it by being alive and remembering  _ something,  _ and I think that’s even more than I can reasonably ask of you, given everything you just told me.”

“ _ Fuck _ , man… what if they hate me? I… I don’t know what I’ll do if they hate me. You were the only reason I think I remembered  _ anything,  _ Brian was the reason I kept fighting for control, Sung was how I kept my sanity… I don’t know what I would do if you all left. It’s not like you wouldn’t be warranted in feeling like that but—“

Ego cut him off, squeezing his shoulder gently. “ _ Nobody  _ wants to leave you behind. Not even Meouch or Phobos, after they saw how Sung, Brian, and I reacted to you being in Silver Face. They might be a little apprehensive around you, but you can’t start thinking like this or you’ll never get out of it, okay?”

Danny nodded softly, his hands drifting to his sides. “Yeah… yeah, okay…”

“Hug?” Ego held his arms out, waiting for an answer. 

Danny gave him a small grin. “Alright, big cat. Just one.”




Things had calmed down since then. Danny didn’t press him on what had happened anymore, and soon he’d fallen asleep, finally settling into a normal pattern of breathing. No shaking, no glowing, and no fever. Ego was thankful that he was finally able to get some rest, but he himself didn’t sleep, continuing to tend the fire and think about recent events.

First, he thought about what Dan had said his memories were. The battlefield seemed to be an almost exact mirror to the time they’d faced off against Silver Face on Prison Island, when they’d seen the robot’s chest creak open to expose the blank, apathetic face of his friend. He shuddered at the thought. Even when Danny had been angry at him earlier, it hadn’t scared him half as much as the apathy had. Ego would give anything to never have to see that expression on him again. It was strange that he had remembered that battle in particular, given that he didn’t seem to remember the rest of his time within Silver Face. 

The memory of his death was simple, yet it was still the one Ego was having the hardest time mulling over. He supposed it was just hard to think about that moment. So many times he and Sung had sat, talking about  _ anything  _ in order to forget about the sickening scrape of metal against the sheer rock on the cliffs. It had never worked, not once, and he knew they’d never be able to forget it. Hearing Danny describe the pain as simply… death didn’t ease the terrible feeling he got from that scene in his head. Lying on the ground, feeling the electricity grab him and pull him into place, grab him and not let go, hearing Sung’s pleas and Danny’s battle cries. He knew his friend should have died there, and he was sure Danny knew it too. They all did. And yet, here he was, alive. Ego guessed that was why it was in such terrible circumstances— the exchange of death never came without a heavy price.

Which led to the strangest memory. The one with the jewel. Ego still didn’t quite know what to make of this one. He didn’t know why the jewel acted the way it did, or why Egil had needed to replace Danny’s body, but he did know two basic things: one, that the jewel was the core now implanted into Dan’s chest; and two, that the core was keeping him alive somehow. The red light he’d felt was some sort of defense, some sort of last resort to kick in when Dan was in the red, so to speak. Otherwise, he got the feeling that again, Danny should be dead. Losing that much blood didn’t just leave you mildly lethargic. It made him wonder why Egil had risked putting something so valuable in the most volatile face, the one who could and would turn out to betray him. It was a strange play for someone seeming to be so calculating, so in control of every move he made.

He looked around, glancing across the beach as he thought. The firelight glinted across something, catching his eye. He got up, softly walking over to the shining object to inspect it. It was the faceplate of Silver Face, the memory chip tucked neatly into the inside of the mask. Danny must have dropped it when he passed out the second time. Ego picked it up, letting the sand pour off it. He ran his hands over the eyes of the mask. He was tempted to throw the mask as far as he could, out into the ocean, where he’d never see it again. The evil thing would be banished, far away from him and anyone he cared about, where it couldn’t hurt them. The salt water would fry the memory chip and that would be that.

But Danny’s earlier words still echoed in his mind. The creature behind this chip, half of the thing behind the mask had stopped. It had disobeyed its programming to help them, and didn’t that make it just like Danny? Didn’t that make it worthy of a second chance?

Ego slowly tucked the mask into his belt, making sure the memory chip was still intact. He made his way back to the fire, sitting down once more.

Before he had time to ponder this development further, a snap of a branch caught his attention. He readied his hands, quickly standing up defensively. “Danny,” he whisper-yelled, “Danny! Wake up!”

Danny shifted in his sleep, waking up quickly but coming up disoriented. “Huh? What’s wrong—“

“Shhhh,” Ego hissed. “Someone’s in the forest!”

Danny’s face shifted immediately. “Right,” he whispered back. He sat up, ready to bolt if needed.

“Ego!! Eeeeeegoooooo!!!” A voice called, the owner concealed by the trees. 

Ego’s heart about leapt into his throat. He’d recognize that voice anywhere. “IS THAT THE DOCTOR HIMSELF,” he yelled back, dropping his defensive stance. “OR AM I JUST DREAMING?”

“Only in your dreams would you see a face this good!” A small figure tumbled out of the woods, locking its arms around his torso. 

Ego laughed. His friends had come! They’d found him, and they were all  _ alive  _ and  _ holy shit all his friends were alive,  _ he realized, as Meouch, Phobos, and Brian appeared from the trees. Two Machina holding torches trailed behind them, smiling slightly. 

“Bionis,” he muttered softly. “We’re not dead.”

“It’s great, right? We still have a robot ass to kick!” Sung exclaimed, punching the air. He paused and turned to the Machina, who Ego assumed were guides. “Er, no offense, you two.”

“None taken.” One said smoothly.

“Um, there is something I need you guys to see, though,” Ego said sheepishly, stepping out of Sung’s embrace. Danny was hiding behind him, picking at his core like a child singled out at a birthday party. He managed a small wave.

Everyone stood, stunned for a perfect minute before Ego broke the silence.

“Everyone, meet Danny. He’d like to get to know you.”

  
  
  
  



End file.
